Great/Mainspring Wheels

[Bernie Weishapl]

Well finished both of the mainspring or great wheel arbors. I have to still install the clicks and springs. The gentleman that replaced them sometime prior to me repairing it put in the wrong clicks and it almost ruined the click wheel. When I had it apart to mount on the new arbor I straightened up the teeth by doing a small amount of filing. I will now see about installing a proper click and spring on each. So with those done and with the repivoting of 3 wheels half of the lathe is already paid for and did the mainspring arbors in about a 1/3 of the time it would have took me on the little Boley. It also made it much easier since the wheels are the same so measurements were identical. I will finish up the clicks this afternoon and reassemble the clock tomorrow. That will probably be the end of my shop time for awhile as the left eye will be done Friday.

[Arutha]

Beautiful job Bernie, even with your "bad eyes" your winding squares are much neater than mine, I really need to learn how to file flat. With the amount of practice I have had you would think I should find it easy now

[willofiam]

Well done Bernie, I dont think there is anything better, funner, enjoyable, satisfying, rewarding, exciting, than making something like you just did for a clock or watch. William

[david pierce]

Bernie,
Was the pivot in the picture turned on the Taig? It looks great.
david

[mahlon]

Looks great Bernie. I have not tried to turn still yet. You mentioned the three jaw chuck. I had not trued mine up, so I did the same checks that you had mentioned, and mine seems to be perfect as well. As far as the collets go, I was afraid that I was tightening them down too tight, so I thought I might need sizes that were in between the ones that I had. The problem may be with the lose nut installing then Mahlon I will keep you in my prayers

[david pierce]

Mahlon,
If you are refering to ER-16 collets they work differently than the WW collets. There is a ring groove around the end of the collet. The groove seats into a ring in the tightening nut and the collet must be pressed into the nut before inserting it into the lathe. This can be done in a bench vice using wooden pads in the vice jaws. A proper set of ER-16 collets should be able to hold all of the in between sizes with no loss of accuracy. They are designed to close at both ends and grip much tighter than a WW collet. To tighten the collet you need two wrenches, one to hold the spindle and the other to tighten the nut. With the shaft in the collet tighten the nut until it stops.
david

[Bernie Weishapl]

Thanks to all.

Arthua I have a jig I made for doing that. I will post a pic's tomorrow. It has roller bearings on either side of the shaft and keeps the file flat and on plane.

David I did burnish and polish pivots on these. I also polished the wheel to get it ready for the click and click spring. The part that will hold the spring didn't get polished because I had to put the pin in that grabs the inner mainspring. Even when I repivot I burnish and polish the pivots.

Mahlon I used the wrench from Taig on the headstock and another wrench from my tool box on the collet holder. I tightened it down to do the pivots on the three wheels. When I repivoted them I used the ER collects and they tightened down with no problems and held tightly. David is right in that these collets do hold better and I think more accurately than the WW collets. Could be just me.

William thanks. It does give a great sense of satisfaction to do those things. It is very enjoyable and wish I had bought it sooner.

[mahlon]

Thanks David and Bernie, I was afraid that I would damage the collets by tightening them so much. I kept watching Bob's videos, and it seemed that he was tightening the ww collets with little effort, so I assumed that was the way all machines worked. My machine did not come with a wrench, but I have the same size wrenches for my shop saws. Hopefully I will get the hang of it soon. Mahlon

[david pierce]

Mahlon,
As a professional woodworker you must have tightened router bit into a router collet many times. This is the same process. The reason for the collet locking into the nut is to prevent the collet from getting stuck when you want to remove it. Since the collet is locked into the nut it comes out when you unscrew it. The old style (E16) had to be tapped out. I guess the R in ER stands for release. The ER, R8, and 5C collets are very common styles today.
david

[Chris Mabbott]

Hey Bernie, nice job buddy and great photos. Glad to see you back, how was the surgery and how are you doing


Chris

[Bernie Weishapl]

Thanks Chris. I had to get these done before surgery. Surgery is day after tomorrow on Friday. Then wait a month and have the other one done.